The Arab Spring:

Today is a big day for many middle Eastern countries. A day of protest, named "the day of rage" has sparked protests in Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon and other countries. Most of the protests have no turned violent, and people are massing to throw their leadership out of the country.

There are many powers at play in this section of the world, not the least of which is The Muslim Brotherhood, a group of extremists who are responsible for some suicide bombings and other terrorist acts. This smaller group is on the same side of the other protesters, most of whom are youth who want more freedom, and less autocracy and corruption.

I hope they kick out any corrupt governments, hope that the stuff going on in Europe spreads, and hope that comes to the USA as well.

I feel like that's a complete simplification of the effects of revolutions. Like I said in the Tunisia thread, Mubarak may be an autocrat in all but name, but he's far preferable to the Muslim Brotherhood. Does Mubarak restrict the rights of his citizens? Yes. Would the Muslim Brotherhood restrict them even more? Yes. And yet, the Muslim Brotherhood, which has carried out terrorist actions, is a major (outlawed, so far as I know) opposition party in Egypt.

My point is this: Revolution does not inherently equal a better life for the people of Egypt or anyone else, and more democracy =/= more liberty.

In Europe a lot of the discontent comes from anarchists and other leftist groups. That's what I was praying more of happens, people taking to the streets against the bankster takeover in a leftist fashion, not reactionary Islam coming down.

"...not the least of which is The Muslim Brotherhood, a group of extremists who are responsible for some suicide bombings and other terrorist acts..."

Just to point out that the Muslum Brotherhood, AFAIK, has never been responsible for any terrorist acts.

A popular uprising in the Middle East is long overdue. When it comes, it will trend toward religious conservatism, which does not have to mean an increase in terrorism. Either way, replacing secular tyranny with populist tyranny is probably an inevitable phase along the way toward some form of genuine democracy. That will be a long time coming, but with luck maybe some of us will get to see it.

Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it

What it all adds up to, re the OP, is that in any democratic Egypt, the Muslum Brotherhood would presumably have rather large role in the new government, if not actually running candidates of their own.

Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it

Amid a third day of anti-government protests, Internet outages and disruptions were reported today in Egypt, according to reports.

Facebook and Twitter confirmed the reports for their sites. "We are aware of reports of disruption to service and have seen a drop in traffic from Egypt this morning," a Facebook spokesman said in a statement. "You may want to visit Herdict.org, a project of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University that offers insight into what users around the world are experiencing in terms of web accessibility."

According to Herdict.org, there were 459 reports of inaccessible sites in Egypt and 621 reports of accessible sites.

Twitter's Global PR account reported on the site that: "Egypt continues to block Twitter & has greatly diminished traffic. However, some users are using apps/proxies to successfully tweet."

Meanwhile, there were numerous reports of outages around the Web.

"A major service provider for Egypt, Italy-based Seabone, reported early Friday that there was no Internet traffic going into or out of the country after 12:30 a.m. local time," the Associated Press reported. "Associated Press reporters in Cairo were also experiencing outages."

The Los Angeles Times reported that Black Berry users were not able to reach the Internet on their devices.

RIM provided this statement when asked for comment: "We can confirm that RIM has not implemented any changes that would impact service in Egypt and that RIM's Black Berry Infrastructure has continued to be fully operational throughout the day. For questions regarding a specific network in Egypt, please contact the carrier who operates the network.

A Twitter post by Ben Wedeman, CNN senior correspondent in Cairo, around 3 p.m PDT says: "No internet, no SMS, what is next? Mobile phones and land lines? So much for stability."

The Arabist blog had mixed reports, with someone in Cairo saying Internet service was down while a foreign journalist was able to get onto the Internet Semiramis Intercontinental hotel.

Twitter representatives did not respond immediately to an e-mail request for more information.

The Internet disruptions spurred activist action. Anonymous, the group that launched distributed denial-of-service attacks on Web sites of financial institutions and others opposing Wiki Leaks last year, released a video online in which it threatened to launch DOS attacks on Egyptian government Web sites if the authorities did not curtail censorship efforts. Earlier today, five people were arrested in the U.K. in connection with those attacks.

Because Twitter has been found to be an effective communications tool during social unrest and protests — in Iran and Moldova, along with Tunisia and Egypt, more recently — it is an attractive target for governments to try to block, along with Facebook.

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